Cash Enriches Cw Collection

Collector Donates Colonial Currency Valued At $720,000

February 18, 1995|By BENTLEY BOYD Daily Press

WILLIAMSBURG — The owner of one of the three largest collections of 18th-century money in the country has told Colonial Williamsburg to spread it around.

Joseph R. Lasser of New York gave CW a collection of currency notes in December that has been valued at $720,000, and he has promised to give the foundation his Colonial coin collection upon his death, CW development director Barry Dress said Friday.

"He stressed that he wanted us to use it interpretively - to let people get up close to it and not lock it up behind glass forever," Dress said. "And we have. We showed the collection last week to a tour of 45 people from an elderly hostel."

Lasser's collection of 970 bills includes some designed by Paul Revere and Benjamin Franklin. Franklin created a floral print widely used in the colonies to prevent counterfeiting, said associate curator Gail Greve.

"It would differ from one issue of the money to another issue as an easy way to discourage fraud," Greve said. "Some of the designs on this money are so intricate that you can't tell where they begin and where they end. It's phenomenal."

Colonial Williamsburg had about 80 pieces of 18th-century currency in its collection before Lasser donated his bills printed between 1708 and 1789, she said.

"This is a much, much greater collection for us in terms of size and time span," Greve said. "It has all kinds of denominations, from pence to pounds. That's what's nice about this collection: You really can get a nice sense about what was out there."

There was a lot out there just before and after the American Revolution, when states were issuing their own money. Lasser has written several articles for collector journals about how the paper bills were often used as a personal IOU or as a government bond to pay for military campaigns, jails or lighthouses.

As such, each bill was signed by hand by a state's prominent businessmen, landowners or government officials. Greve said Lasser's Virginia money includes bills signed by Edmund Randolph, the patriot nephew of Peyton Randolph; and by Robert Carter Nicholas, the treasurer of Virginia who lived in the house just southwest of the Governor's Palace from 1753 to 1761.

Colonial Williamsburg printers have already examined the money in hopes of reprinting it so costumed actors can use it in historic area programs, Greve said.

The collection also helps Colonial Williamsburg understand how the money was used in daily life, Greve said. While some of the money is in mint, or undamaged, condition, many bills are patched together.

"Some of them have been sewn up and used up until it could be replaced," she said. Anyone can go into the CW library on the corner of Lafayette and Boundary streets and ask to see the collection, Greve said.

Lasser lives in Scarsdale and works for a New York investment firm. Dress said Lasser has never made a donation to Colonial Williamsburg but was persuaded to by George O'Neill, the husband of Abby Rockefeller O'Neill, the granddaughter of CW founder John D. Rockefeller Jr.